


you are what you love (not who loves you)

by epilogues



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: F/M, Hiatus, M/M, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 11:29:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14377719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: the band goes on hiatus, and jo figures her shit out.





	you are what you love (not who loves you)

**Author's Note:**

> -written from a prompt on tumblr (“i cant breathe”)

  
The band split up two weeks ago, and even though Joe hates to think it, it looks like his and Patrick’s relationship went with it. Joe wants to talk to Patrick more than anything, but he doesn’t want to risk his call being ignored. This way, at least, he can pretend that Patrick is just busy, that Patrick hadn’t been unable to meet his eyes when the dust had cleared and Joe had whispered, “I’ve still got you, right?”

Joe closes his eyes and flops back onto his bed. It’s three am and Patrick should be here but he’s fucking not. He’s not and they haven’t talked in two weeks and Joe doesn’t know what’s going on. They’d all sensed that the band might be on shaky ground, but Joe hadn’t imagined that he and Patrick might go on a hiatus as well. And it has to be a hiatus. Joe can’t even imagine what he would do if Patrick wanted to end it completely. Patrick’s supposed to be his fucking happily ever after, cliché as that sounds.

With a sigh, Joe rolls over and starts counting sheep. He’s had enough sleepless nights the past two weeks that he falls asleep fairly quickly, but it’s only a few minutes later that he jerks out of a nightmare. “Fuck,” he gasps, drenched in sweat and reaching blindly for Patrick except. Patrick’s not there and it’s just like Joe’s dream all over again and he’s reaching for his phone and dialing Patrick’s number before he knows it.

Patrick picks up surprisingly quickly, his voice sleep-groggy. “‘Lo?”

“I need you,” Joe rushes out. His breath is shallow and he knows he’s almost to the point of a panic attack. “I need you but you’re here and I need you, Patrick, I can’t breathe - I can’t-”

“Joe?” Patrick says. He sounds infinitely more awake now. “Hey, breathe for me, okay? Just breathe.”

It’s the first time Joe’s heard Patrick’s voice in weeks and it helps, sort of. He closes his eyes and tries to focus on slowly his breathing. Patrick keeps murmuring comfortingly until Joe’s mostly calm again, and then Joe whispers, “Can we - can we talk?” because they haven’t, not since the band agreed to go on hiatus.

There’s long silence before Patrick answers. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, Trick, I just - what’s happening?”

“I don’t know either,” admits Patrick. “But I. I don’t know if I can do this right now, Joe.”

“What, um, what don’t you know if you can do right now,” Joe asks, and he can’t imagine an answer to that question that he wants to hear. “Can’t talk about this, can’t have the band on hiatus, can’t-”

“I don’t think I can do us,” Patrick says. “It’s nothing that you did, it’s just everything with the band and everything feels like it’s spiraling out of control, and I love you, I swear, but I can’t do this right now. I don’t want this to be a permanent thing, but I think I need a break. I think… we need to break up. Just for a little while. I’m sorry.”

Joe doesn’t even know how to form words to respond to that, so he just chokes out, “Okay,” and jabs the END CALL button with a shaking finger. Fuck. The only thing he has to hold onto right now is that Patrick said a break. Not permanent. Joe can hold on to that.

And he does, clinging to it for the rest of that sleepless night and the countless ones to follow.

 

* * *

 Another whole week passes and Joe doesn’t even realize that he hasn’t left his house for that entire time period until he goes to shake some cereal into a bowl and discovers that not only is that box empty, but that the rest of the pantry is as well. So he shoves his feet into some ratty old sneakers and drives to the nearest store. He’s hidden in a baggy gray sweatshirt and he hasn’t shaved in weeks and he just prays that he doesn’t see anyone he knows as he fills a cart with Wheaties and shitty beer. Luckily, he’s able to get in and out of the store without incident.

Once he’s back home, he unpacks the groceries, pours himself a bowl of cereal, and then kinda... freezes, coming to the realization that he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing with his life right now. The band’s been his life for years, and now it’s gone. And Patrick…well. Joe’s not thinking about that. He almost texts Pete to see if he wants to just hang out or something before remembering some of the shit he called Pete during those last fights and puts his phone down. Who needs friends anyway when you have beer and two seasons of America’s Next Top Model to catch up on, right?

Andy texts him late that afternoon. _I heard about you and Patrick. You okay?_

 _as okay as you’d expect_ , Joe answers, and then he shuts his phone off because talking to Andy is a little too much right now and everything is wrong and it hurts.

Joe doesn’t know what to do with himself, honestly. His life pretty much revolved solely around Patrick and the band before this, but now that’s all gone. He flops down on the couch but gets up a second later because there’s a picture of him and Patrick almost taunting him from the coffee table. So he goes through his recycling, finds a large box, and walks around his entire apartment, getting rid of everything that reminds him of Patrick. 

Needless to say, it’s a lot of stuff. Joe has no idea how so much of Patrick’s stuff has gotten into his apartment, but there’s no denying that it has. As Joe takes yet another picture of him and Patrick off the wall, he feels kind of numb, like this isn’t actually happening. He and Patrick got together back on that first tour; Joe’s brain can’t quite adjust to the fact that he’s just lost both Patrick and the band. 

It hits him that night, though, as he lies down in bed and there’s no goodnight text from Patrick. Joe definitely doesn’t start crying or anything when he changes his phone wallpaper from Patrick to the default beach scene. 

  
“Goddamnit,” Joe whispers. He’s not feeling panicky-sad like the other night. His whole body just feels heavy and worn-down and  _ wrong _ , but somehow he manages to drift off to sleep. 

* * *

 

  
The next three days are just _sad._ Joe spends a good portion of them crying in his room. He’s not usually a huge crier, but this fucking _hurts._ He and Patrick…they were supposed to be together forever, cheesy as that sounds.

Andy stops by on the third night, carrying a pizza from the shop down the road. “Hey,” he says. “I heard about you and Patrick, and I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Also, I brought pizza because I know you probably haven’t been eating much.”

Joe motions Andy inside and says, “Shit, dude, uh, thank you. Like, seriously.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Andy says. He places the pizza box on the counter and pulls Joe in for a brief hug. “How are you doing?”

“Not too great,” Joe admits. “Everything just got completely fucked over and I fucking…I expected him to be here, you know? But he’s fucking not.”

“I’m sorry, dude,” Andy says. “Look, I…I can’t stay long. I need some space from everything that’s happened, but I’m here if you need.”

“Yeah, yeah, I understand,” Joe replies.

Andy hugs him one more time, and then he’s gone and Joe’s alone again and it still fucking hurts, but Joe actually feels like he might be able to breathe for the first time in over a week.

* * *

“Uncle Joe, you’d make a great princess,” Sadie says, completely seriously, and Joe laughs a little as he lets his niece pull him into her room and use him as a tiara model. He’s been spending more time with his family the past few weeks than in a long time because, well, what else is there to do?

“That’s quite a compliment,” he says, and she nods with an air of self-importance that only four year olds possess as she places yet another sparkly crown on his head.

She studies it appraisingly for a moment before clapping her hands together. “There’s your crown, Uncle Joe, do you like it?”

He takes the handheld plastic mirror she holds out to him and looks at his reflection.”It’s very pretty,” he says, and she beams at him.

“C’mon, I wanna go show you to Dad,” she says, pulling at his hand.

“Alright, alright, let me get up first,” he laughs as he stands up and lets her lead him downstairs.

“Dad, Dad!” Sadie calls. “Come look at Princess-Uncle Joe!”

Joe’s brother pokes his head around the kitchen doorway and snorts. “He looks great, honey.”

“She’s the most beautifulest princess ever!” Sadie exclaims and Joe has to stop for a moment because whoa. She. That…is not supposed to make something in his chest light up. Huh.

* * *

 

He mostly forgets about it until later that night, when he’s pulling out his phone to text his mom back about him visiting her next month and his eyes catch on his bright pink nails. Sadie had insisted on Joe painting both her and his own nails, and he’s actually kind of impressed by how not-shitty they are. He’s also kind of surprised by how much he actually likes the splash of color, which reminds him of the little ‘!!!’ his heart did earlier when Sadie called him she.

“She,” he says aloud, feeling stupid. It’s one letter away from the normal, and yet. Something about it feels wildly different in what Joe is pretty sure is a good way. “She.”

  
Joe rolls his eyes. He’s being stupid, he needs to just go to sleep and save the identity crisis for another time, but something about this feels persistent. He can’t just sleep this one off. “She,” he says again.

Slowly, feeling like he’s standing on the edge of a precipice and looking down at the vague shapes of words like gender and girl and trans that he can’t pretend he hasn’t thought about before, words that he can’t quite let himself think right now, Joe opens his Notes app and types, “She.” He erases it a second later and types, “Joe is kind of freaking out. She needs to go to sleep.”

Joe looks at that for a long time. He lets the words roll around in his head, thoughts translated to third person, and types, “Joe painted her nails today,” and huh. Huh. That’s…nice. One of the words he’s trying to avoid, _girl_ , floats just outside of the barrier of his subconscious for a second, and it doesn’t feel as weird as he thinks it should. “Huh,” Joe says, aloud this time, and even though it’s nearly midnight and he’s not feeling super inclined to slap any labels on anything at the moment, he thinks he might really like the sound of “her.”

 _She_ \- Joe mentally corrects. _She_ might really like the sound of “her.”

* * *

Nothing much really happens over the next three weeks, and Joe honestly thinks that she’s doing pretty good with this whole _she_ thing. She refuses to let herself put any words to any of it, let alone tell anyone about anything, but overall, she’s handling it well.

She calls her mom one Sunday afternoon because yes, she’s an adult, but she still misses her mom sometimes. They talk for a while about nothing in particular, and then out of the blue, Joe blurts out, “Mom, do you ever wish you had a daughter?”

“I mean, it might’ve been nice to have a break from all the testosterone,” she says, laughing a little, “but I wouldn’t trade you and Sam for the world. Why do you ask?”

“I dunno,” Joe replies. That’s a lie, she knows, sort of, but that’s yet another word on her list of Do Not Think About. “Just wondering.”

Her mom laughs again and drops the topic, starting a story about the groundhog that she can’t get out of her backyard. Joe listens attentively for a while before she checks her watch and realizes that she’s supposed to be meeting Andy for coffee in ten minutes. “Hey, Mom, I’d better get going, love you,” she says, and Mrs. Trohman returns the same before ending the call.

Once Joe’s in the car and halfway to Starbucks, she starts getting kind of nervous about seeing Andy. She hasn’t seen him since he dropped the pizza off that night, and even that doesn’t really count because she barely spoke to him. Joe is just praying that he won’t bring up the band or Patrick or anything like that too much because she’s just starting to feel sort of okay again and that’s the last thing she needs right now. She gets to the store before Andy and orders a plain black coffee, and she’s sitting at a table running her fingers over the name on her cup when Andy sits down.

“Hey,” says Andy. “How are you doing?”

Joe takes a sip of her coffee and shrugs. “I’m okay, I guess. Everything’s just… weird.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve already gotten a few offers from some smaller bands just for studio fill-ins and stuff, but I don’t think I want to accept anything yet, you know?”

"Yeah,” Joe agrees. She pushes her hair back from her face and forces herself to actually make eye contact with Andy. She wasn’t planning on seeing any of the guys so soon after the band separated, but she’s glad that she’s here. Andy’s the one that came out of most of the fights unscathed anyway; he tried not to get involved with what was mainly Pete and Patrick’s issues. He also said the least shit to and about the rest of the band, which Joe appreciates.

Andy clears his throat a little. “So, look, you’re not going to want to hear this-”

Joe immediately stiffens. The topic of the band has pretty much been covered, which leaves just the second elephant in the room open for discussion: Patrick. “I don’t, okay, so just -”

“-but I promised Patrick I’d tell you,” Andy continues quickly. “I don’t want to talk to him right now either, him or Pete, really, but he texted me the other day and I couldn’t just ignore him. He said, and I quote, “I know Joe doesn’t want to hear from me right now, but will you please tell him that he has a bunch of shit at my house that I would really appreciate getting picked up. Also, tell him that I’d really like my Bowie shirt back.”

Joe has to close her eyes for a second, and it’s not even because thinking about Patrick makes her want to cry. It’s because it’s the first time since she’s started referring to herself as she that she’s heard someone call her he, and it feels fucking terrible. It’s not that she ever really liked or disliked being referred to as he before, she just… didn’t know that there was an alternative. And she fucking loves the alternative, but now she’s remembering that oh yeah, the literal entire rest of the world still sees her as male.

 _Male? As opposed to…?_ her stupid, traitorous brain whispers, dancing around one of the words on her list of Do Not Think About.

“Joe? You okay?”

Joe blinks, jerked out of her thoughts by Andy’s voice. “Uh, yeah, yeah, I’m good. Yeah. Do you think you could get my stuff, though? I know you said that you don’t want to talk to him, but…”

“Yeah, of course,” Andy says, rapping his fingers on the table absentmindedly.

Joe shifts her weight in her chair, wincing at the tiny scrape of the metal chair legs against the floor, and she hates the awkward silence that’s fallen over the table because it’s Andy for crying out loud and things shouldn’t be like this with him. “Can we just - I don’t know. Have you seen any good movies lately?”

And so they talk about movies and the president and everything but the band, and it’s good. Eventually, though, Andy glances at the clock on the wall and announces that he has to get going. “I’m glad that we got to hang out, though,” he says. “I don’t want to lose all of it.”

Joe nods. “Yeah, exactly. I’ll see you whenever, I guess.”

Andy gives her a small smile and leaves; Joe watches his silhouette until he’s out of sight and sighs. She’s glad that she got to see Andy, but it still hurts to think about Patrick and the band and the way that everything that her life has been for years is gone. Surprisingly, though, being called “he” almost hurt _more._ Joe doesn’t really want to think about why that is, but she’s starting to realize that that’s kind of unavoidable.

After a few moments of deliberation, Joe reasons that she still has half of her coffee, and she figures that Starbucks is as good a place as any for an identity crisis. So she pulls her phone out of her back pocket and opens Google. She stares nervously at the empty search bar for a minute before opening an incognito tab and typing “transgender” with shaking hands.

The results load quickly, articles and images popping up like little lightning bolts and ultimately scaring the shit out of Joe. This feels big. It’s big and terrifying and Joe wishes more than anything that Patrick was here to help her. He’s not, though, so she takes a deep breath and clicks the first link alone.

* * *

 

Joe isn’t big on labels, generally, but she’ll admit that they’re helpful sometimes. And so as she’s driving home from Starbucks two hours later, Joe decides to try out a new one. “I’m a girl,” she whispers, and it’s scary and she feels like she’s falling off a precipice but it’s exhilarating at the same time. “I’m a girl.”

The word ‘girl’ is like opening a floodgate to all of the other things Joe’s been avoiding, and she has to pull over for a moment to catch her breath as they wash over her. “Fuck,” Joe says. “I’m a girl.”

Now that she’s said it, now that it’s finally clicked, Joe honestly has no idea how she didn’t know before. The term feels right in a way that Joe hadn’t known words could feel. She’s a girl, she’s trans, and fuck if that word isn’t still absolutely terrifying. She knows that the world is a fucked-up place if you’re trans. Hell, it’s a fucked-up place to live if you’re bi; she’s experienced that firsthand. She has no idea how her family will react when she tells them (if she even tells them at all), let alone any of her friends. Not to mention, Joe is still holding out hope of getting back with Patrick one day, but who knows how much this is screwing those already small chances up.

 _I’ll figure that shit out later,_ Joe tells herself firmly. Right now, she’ll just let herself revel in the fact that hey, she’s a girl and she knows and that makes her so fucking happy.

* * *

 

Joe tells her mom a month later. She really hadn’t been planning on doing so, but then her mom calls her and one thing leads to another and Joe feels like she’s going to throw up if her mom says anything about being proud of her son one more time. So she takes a deep breath and blurts out, “Hey, Mom, can I, uh, can I talk to you about something? It’s kind of serious, sort of. Like, not _bad_ serious, hopefully, just like. Can I talk to you about it?”

“Of course, Joe,” Mrs. Trohman says, sounding slightly concerned. “What is it?”

Joe looks down at the floor and shuffles her feet a little, clearing her throat before responding. “I, um. I’m trans. Like, transgender. I’m a girl.”

There’s a silence that feels way too long to Joe before her mom replies, “Okay. I won’t lie and say that I understand exactly what that means, but I’m not going to make you explain right now, okay? But it’s 100% okay.”

“Yeah, that’s- thank you, Mom,” Joe says, feeling like she might actually cry from relief.

“So are you going by a different name?”

Joe blinks for a second. She’s thought about it a bit and spent some time on baby name sites, but nothing’s really felt like _her_. “Uh, I’d like to, but I don’t really know what yet,” she admits.

“Okay,” her mom says, and she sounds a little lost but she’s _trying_ and that’s what matters. “That’s okay, sweetie. So, do you want me to call you, uh, she?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be really great, actually. Thank you,” Joe says, and she is _not_ getting choked up, okay.

“Alright, I can do that. This is the last question, I promise, but does anyone else know?”

“No, you’re the only person I’ve told,” Joe says. “I don’t think I’m ready for, like, Sam or any of my friends to know yet, but if you think Dad’ll be okay with it…”

“I can tell him for you,” Mrs. Trohman assures her daughter, and Joe smiles. (She may or may not be crying a little bit. It’s fine.)

The conversation kind of drifts away from the whole thing after that, and when Joe hangs up a few minutes later, she still can’t quite believe how easily her mom just accepted it. “I came out,” she says to herself, disbelievingly, and it’s one of the best feelings in the world to know that right now, there’s actually someone else in the world that knows that Joe’s a girl. She lets herself bask in the feeling for a minute before her mind wanders back to one of her mom’s questions.

_“Are you going by a different name?”_

Joe wants to. There’s nothing wrong with the name Joe, of course, but anyone who sees it will automatically think _male._ Joe is… not a fan of that. She’s tried baby name sites and books multiple times, but nothing has ever stuck. With a sigh, she gets up from her kitchen table, where she’s been sitting, and migrates to the bathroom to fuck with her hair.

She’s been growing it out for a while now, even before she realized she was female, and it’s just reaching the length where she can actually do shit with it. Joe has no idea what she’s doing at any given moment, but it’s fun. She squints at her reflection for a bit, pulling her hair into a number of strange shapes before finally just tying it back in a simple ponytail. She’s wearing a warm white sweater, a pastel pink scarf, and blue jeans, and if she turns to the side just a bit and imagines that her Adam’s apple isn’t there, she’s pretty sure that she actually looks like a girl.

Joe bites her lip for a second, considering, before reaching into the drawer under the sink and pulling out some light pink lip gloss. She applies it in two quick moves and smiles at herself. The lights above the mirror reflect off of the gloss and make Joe smile. She looks good, even though she’s still pretty new at this whole “female presenting” thing.

In fact, Joe decides, she looks too good to just stay at home. So she grabs her wallet and drives to Starbucks because, hey, coffee. It’s a short drive, and she’s there in just a few minutes. As Joe waits in line, she can’t help but tap her feet anxiously. This is only the second time she’s presented female in public, and the first time was literally just a quick trip to the grocery store at 10pm when no one would see her. She knows she lives in a really liberal area and that no one is likely to say anything, but it’s still scary.

Joe reaches the front of the line without incident and orders her usual plain black coffee.

“Name?” the cashier asks, looking bored.

Joe sighs a little internally but replies, “Joe,” before stepping away from the counter so the next person can order. As she waits for her coffee to be ready, she pulls out her phone and idly swipes through her apps, just because she hates standing empty-handed and awkwardly in public places.

Only a second later, she hears her name called out over the quiet hum of the shop, and she puts her phone back into her pocket and goes to pick up her coffee. “Thank you,” she tells the barista behind the counter as she picks the coffee up, turns, and leaves the shop.

Joe is halfway home before she actually looks at the name written on her cup, expecting some new misspelling for her to put on Instagram like “Joah” or “Jho.” The messy cursive, however, reads, “Jo,” with a little smiley face next to it. Joe thinks her heart does a little flip in her chest. Jo. She… really fucking likes that, actually. It’s close to her birth name, but it’s clearly feminine. ( _Which means_ , her brain adds excitedly, _that the people in Starbucks saw you as a girl.)_

Joe smiles and looks down at the cup again. Jo. Yeah, she really likes that. It instantly feels right in a way that none of the options she’s considered so far have, and it’s kind of exhilarating.

Joe turns it over in her head for the rest of the drive home, and by the time she’s pulling into her driveway, she’s made up her mind. Once she’s parked, she pulls out her phone and texts her mom. _About the name thing - I think I’m going to go by Jo._

Jo stares down at the text until it’s delivered, repeating the name in her head over and over again, and she thinks that this feels even better than the pronouns.

* * *

 

 _Soul Punk_ is released not long after that. Jo hears about it, of course, but she doesn’t listen to it. She’s afraid that it’ll hurt too much. A week later, though, Andy texts her and invites her over to listen to it together and hang out, and Jo doesn’t want to be antisocial and turn him down. So she texts back, _Sure, what time?_

_Whenever, I guess. Maybe in an hour or so?_

_Sounds good! See u then :)_

She puts her phone down after that and is about to head upstairs to get dressed when she remembers - she’s not out to Andy. Jo hasn’t really been hanging out with any of her old friends or anyone like that, so she’s felt safe presenting female for the past couple of months. Except now she… probably shouldn’t do that. It’s not like Jo thinks Andy will freak out or anything like that, but she’s not sure whether or not she’s ready to come out to him yet. The only people she’s out to right now are her parents, for crying out loud.

“It’s fine,” she tells herself. “I’m not wearing any make-up right now, I can just wear jeans and a t-shirt and it’ll be _fine.”_

Jo goes upstairs and throws on a casual outfit that very well looks like it could be from “before.” When she’s halfway through changing, though, she realizes that her nails are still painted her current favorite pastel purple color. She doubts that Andy will notice, but the fact that they’re not a ridiculous neon color will make them harder to pass off as a joke if need be. “It’s fine,” she repeats. “It’s fine.”

It seems like only a second later that she’s pulling into Andy’s driveway, somehow nervous that he’ll be able to _tell_ , but she takes a deep breath and forces herself to ring the doorbell.

Andy opens the door a few moments later. “Hey, Joe! C’mon in.”

Jo smiles at him and pretends she can’t hear the e hanging onto the end of the name as she steps inside. “Hey! How have you been, dude? I haven’t seen you since that day at the coffee shop.”

“I’ve been pretty good. Busy, like always. You?”

“About the same,” Jo answers, “just without the busy part. Life’s honestly been pretty boring.”

“Boring’s not bad,” Andy says, shrugging as he leads Jo into the living room. “So I have the album all set up to play, I have snacks, I’ve never really listened to an album with someone before, but I didn’t want to do it alone, you know?”

Jo nods. “No, I get that completely. I probably wouldn’t have listened to it at all if you hadn’t texted me.”

Andy nods as well, and they sit down on the couch as Andy pushes play on the CD player. “Nice nails,” Andy comments, looking at Jo’s hands as she reaches for the bag of pretzels on the coffee table. His tone is carefully neutral, like he’s trying to straddle the line between a joke and a sincere compliment depending on why Jo’s nails are painted in the first place.

“Thanks,” Joe replies genuinely. “I, uh, I’ve actually gotten pretty good at doing them by myself.” She taps her fingers lightly to the beat of the song. It’s damn good music. Patrick’s voice rises and falls and soars, and Jo has to pretend that she doesn’t miss hearing that voice every night as she falls asleep.

“Oh, cool,” says Andy. He sounds like he wasn’t expecting that answer, but Jo knows that that’s not his judgmental tone.

“Yeah,” she answers, feeling slightly awkward. Andy grabs a handful of chips before leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes, letting the music wash over him as the album rolls onto the next track. Jo follows suit, and they stay like that for most of the next almost-hour.

It’s a _good_ fucking album. Jo’s only heard Patrick sing like this in the shower before, and it’s crazy to hear him backed up with instruments and professionally mixed. Eventually, the last track plays, and Jo blinks her eyes open, feeling like she’s waking from a trance, to find Andy staring at her.

Jo coughs a little. feeling awkward. “So, uh. That was really good.”

“It was,” Andy says, although he doesn’t really sound focused on what he’s saying. “I’m gonna text Patrick later and tell him I liked it.”

“Yeah, I might do the same,” Jo replies. Andy’s still staring at her, his eyes searching, and she wonders if he’s somehow been able to tell. “Hey, uh, not to be weird, but I can I ask why you’re staring at me? I know I’m hot and all, but it’s kind of getting weird, dude.”

“Sorry, it’s just. You look… different,” Andy says after a moment. “I noticed it when you got here, but I couldn’t explain what it was. I thought it was maybe the nails, and maybe that’s part of it, but there’s something else. You’re like, carrying yourself differently or something.”

Jo exhales slowly, little alarms starting to shriek in her head. “Oh, uh, that’s interesting.”

She’s at a crossroads now; she can change the subject or she can come out to Andy. Jo wants to come out, she really does, but she doesn’t want to risk Andy reacting negatively. But…. he was nice about the nails. And it’s not like Andy to freak out about something like this. So she takes a deep breath and says, “Can I, uh, can I tell you something?”

“Of course,” Andy says, shifting so that he’s facing Jo completely. “Is everything okay?”

“Well, um. It’s a little, like, complicated. It’s not anything bad, though, or at least I don’t think it is, it’s just - I don’t know if you’re going to, like, know what I mean and -“

“Joe. You’re rambling, dude,” Andy interrupts gently.

Jo sighs, running a hand through her hair with more force than necessary. “Shit, sorry, I just- I’m a girl,” she blurts out.

There’s a long silence. Jo is just starting to mentally think through the fastest way out of the house when Andy blinks and says, “So you’re trans?”

Jo nods quickly. _Thank fuck that Andy caught on so fast_ , she thinks. “Yeah, I’m. I’m trans. I’m, uh, not really out to anyone but my parents right now, but do you think you could use she/her pronouns for me when we hang out?”

“Yeah, of course, dude,” Andy says. “Wait. Shit. Not dude.”

Jo laughs a little. “Dude’s fine, and uh, I’m also going to go by, um, Jo. Like, it’s basically the same, but without the e on the end.”

Andy nods. “Jo,” he repeats, and even though it technically sounds the exact same, Jo can feel the different lilt it takes on.

“So, this is like. Okay?” Jo asks hesitantly, because even though she just dumped pretty much everything on Andy, she’s still half-expecting rejection.

“Of course, Jo, and if there’s ever anything you need, let me know, okay?” Andy pulls her in for a hug, and Jo feels like a giant weight’s been lifted from her chest as she thanks him.

* * *

 Jo gets home from Andy’s late that night. After she’d come out to him - which is still crazy to think about, honestly - they’d gone back to talking about the album and music and then just life in general for a few hours.

Jo drops her jacket over the edge of the couch and sits down, yawning as she pulls out her phone and hits Patrick’s name in her contacts for the first time in months.

After a moment of deliberation, she types out, _hey. heard the album, it was really good._

It’s not even ten minutes later when Patrick replies, _Thanks!_ which is shortly followed by, _You still in chicago? I’m playing a show next week + can get you tix._

Jo stares down at her phone screen, tapping her fingers alongside Patrick’s words. She hasn’t spoken to him in months, and now he’s inviting her to a show? Maybe he thinks he’s over everything that happened, maybe he _is_ over it. Maybe he wants to -

 _No_ , Jo cuts herself off mentally before the hope can even form. _No. He’s just inviting an old friend to a show._

She can’t think of a response, though, can’t even decide if she wants to go because going means seeing Patrick. She does open her browser, however, and searches Patrick’s tour dates. He’s coming to Chicago next Thursday. Jo’s free that night (when is she not, honestly) and so she thinks about it

She thinks about it and thinks about it and thinks about it and doesn’t text Patrick back, all the way up until Thursday afternoon, when she finally decides to stop sitting around and thinking and just go get a ticket at the door.

Jo’s halfway to the downtown venue when she realizes that seeing Patrick right now would be an even worse idea than she previously thought because she’s wearing a light blue dress and make up. And well... Patrick isn’t going to expect that, to say the least.

“It’s fine,” she tells herself. “There’s no way that he’s going to see you, and besides, who’s to say he’d even recognize you?”

With that thought in mind, Jo parks across the street from the venue and goes to buy a ticket. The line is short, and she’s inside fairly quickly. She probably could work her way up to the barrier if she wanted, but that means seeing Patrick. Up close. Where he could possibly see her. (Yeah, no. Jo stands in the back.)

The lights dim not long after that, and then Patrick’s on stage. It’s the first time Jo’s seen him in god knows how long, and yeah, that hurts, but it’s hard to focus on that because Patrick looks fucking good. He’s wearing a red suit and plastic devil horns and Jo may or may not have to stubbornly push down some mental images because they’re broken up, dammit.

She spends the next hour or so letting herself get lost in the music, singing along to a couple of lines absentmindedly but mostly just watching Patrick.

Patrick works the stage well, filling the spaces where Jo can tell he feels the absence of Pete, of Andy, of her. He looks energetic, happy, but Jo knows him well enough to see that his eyes are exhausted. That, mixed with some of the lyrics that Jo remembers from listening to the album the first time, makes Jo a little concerned.

But it’s not her place to worry about him anymore. He separated them, and even if offering the tickets was an offer of reconciliation, Jo was fucking /hurt/ when they broke up, okay, and while she’s definitely much better now, she’s not sure she would want to run back that quickly.

Patrick’s set ends not too long after that, and Jo slips out of the venue as the next performer takes the stage. She’s not expecting anyone to be outside of the venue yet, let alone Patrick himself, but yep, that’s definitely his voice coming from a side alley. He’s saying something about “-fit the guitars in there, there’s a hotel down the street,” and Jo’s heart kind of stops for a second.

She pokes her head around the corner and watches for a second as Patrick helps another man that Jo recognizes as his guitarist load gear into the back of a bus. She considers, just for a second, calling his name. Would he turn, drop whatever he has in his hands and run to her? Would he stand stock still, caught in the eyes of a ghost?

Jo rolls her eyes at herself. She knows she would never have the guts, and so she turns away before she’s accidentally spotted.

It... might be too late.

“Joe?” Patrick calls, suddenly. “Joe, is that you?”

Jo feels like the air’s just been ripped from her lungs as she immediately ducks back in front of the venue.

“That was a chick, dude, didn’t you see the dress?” Patrick’s guitarist says with a small snort. “C’mon, you’re tired, let’s get to the hotel.”

“Y-yeah. You’re right, sorry, let’s just go,” Patrick mutters, and Jo thinks about stepping back out but the choice is stolen from her by the slam of a bus door. She looks down at the ground, kicking a stone and watching as it skitters out into the road.

Jo doesn’t know what she expected from coming to Patrick’s show, but it wasn’t this. She’s feeling mad, almost, even though she knows she has no right to be. It’s her own damn fault that she didn’t get to talk to Patrick, and now he probably thinks she hates him, which isn’t fucking true, and everything feels kinda like a mess.

“Fuck,” Jo mutters before walking back to her car and driving home.

* * *

  
_Hey, sorry, I was just wondering if you were at the show Thursday?_

Jo’s breath catches in her throat a little as she reads the text from Patrick. He fucking saw her, he saw her, and yeah, there’s no way for him to prove it but he did. She quickly swipes out of the conversation and resolves to just ignore him. She doesn’t feel like any unnecessary drama right now.

She places her phone back on the counter with a sigh and is about to go back to cleaning the table (trying to bake cookies from scratch was not a good idea) when there’s a knock at her door.

 _Who the fuck?_ Jo thinks, because she’s not expecting anyone or any deliveries or anything like that. She walks over to the door and cranes her neck to see through the peephole - it’s fucking Pete.

“Shit,” she whispers. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Pete, really, because she feels like she’s okay with the hiatus and all of that right now, but because she’s not out to Pete. And she’s kind of been presenting female full time - including right now.

Jo _could,_ theoretically, run to her room and find an old t-shirt and jeans instead of the sundress she’s currently wearing, and she could ask Pete for a few minutes and go scrub off all of her makeup. _Or you could just let him in,_ her brain whispers, and huh. That’s an option. It’s not like Pete’s ever said anything against the LGBT community, of course, he was more than accepting when she came out to him as bi years ago. (They might’ve made out in the van _once_. It’s fine. They were both drunk anyway, and Jo definitely doesn’t like him like that.)

So… she could. Jo could open the door right now, just as she is, and there’s a pretty damn good chance that everything would be perfectly fine. And honestly, the more she thinks about it, the more she wants to. She’s going to have to come out to Pete eventually anyway; you can’t not tell your best friend something like this.

And so, before she can think too much, Jo pulls the door open. “Hey!” she says, only a little too brightly. “Long time, no see, dude!”

Pete blinks. “Uh, yeah. Uh. Are you wearing a dress?”

“Yep. Come on in, I guess I have some shit to tell you,” Jo says. Pete looks confused, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to freak out or anything, which Jo takes as a good sign as she leads him into the living room and they sit down.

“I just wanted to stop by and catch up, sorry if this was a bad time or anything,” says Pete, sounding a little lost.

Jo shakes her head. “No, you’re fine! It’s good to see you, Pete.”

“It’s good to see you too,” he says. “Uh, sorry, I’m just-”

She waves a hand. “It’s all good. I know you probably weren’t expecting this, but, um, I just.” She takes a deep breath. “So, like, long story short, I’m a girl. Not a lot of people know yet, but if you could use she/her pronouns for me around my family and Andy, that would be great. Oh, and I’m dropping the e from my name, so, um, yeah. That’s basically it, I guess?”

Pete nods slowly, and Jo winces a little, wondering if she went through everything too fast. “So, you’re a girl. This isn’t some, like, drag queen thing.”

Jo snorts at that. “Hell no. I’m just me, which just so happens to mean that I’m a girl.”

“Okay, that’s cool. Sorry in advance if I fuck up the pronouns, I’ve never had, like, a transgender friend or anything before.” He kinda stumbles over the word transgender, looking at Jo almost nervously to see if he’s using the right words.

“Yeah, it’s all good,” Jo assures him. She feels like there’s something else she should say, but she can’t think of anything and stays silent.

Pete speaks up after a moment, brow furrowed slightly. “So, wait, when you were talking about pronouns, you said just around your family and Andy, right?”

Jo nods. “Yeah, I’m not really out to a lot of people right now.”

“That’s cool, I get that, but Jo, Patrick doesn’t know?”

“No,” Jo says quietly, eyes dropping down to the floor.

“Have you spoken to him at all since…”

Jo shakes her head. “Not in person. We’ve texted a few times, and I went to one of his shows last week, but I haven’t seen him.”

Pete shifts his weight, hands fidgeting slightly as he speaks. “He misses you, Jo. I haven’t been talking to him a lot, but we’ve been in touch and he misses you.”

“I miss him too, it’s just… I’m kinda dealing with a lot of own stuff right now, obviously, and I’m still - I’m still upset about everything, you know?”

Pete nods. “I get that. And I’m here for you whenever you need.”

“Thank you,” Jo says, and things feel okay, good, even, even though there’s still an unanswered text itching in her back pocket.

* * *

 

The next almost-year passes by quickly. Jo spends a lot of time focusing on her personal stuff; she finds a good therapist and is pretty much presenting feminine all of the time. Things are good, really, if she ignores the fact that Andy and Pete want to get the band back together. And, okay, yeah, that’s a good thing. It’s what Jo’s wanted for the past she doesn’t know how long. However, the band means Patrick, and while that makes Jo anxious as fuck, she’s hoping. Maybe they can start again or just pick up where they left off.

Jo just… doesn’t know where to start. She never answered his text about the show, and he hasn’t texted her since. At least, not until one afternoon after Jo hangs up on Pete after yet another repetitive, “We’re gonna be back, Jo, it’s gonna be great, you just have to talk to Patrick first,” conversation.

She’s about to put her phone down when it buzzes. It’s a text from Patrick.

_Hey! Sorry this is such short notice, but I’m going to get coffee at the Starbucks by Cedar St in about 20, want to meet?_

Jo doesn’t hesitate for long before replying, _s_ _ure._

Patrick sends back a smiling emoji a second later, and Jo can’t help but smile a little. She’s going to see Patrick, which, admittedly, is terrifying, but she’s excited. She’s missed him a fucking lot.

Roughly 15 minutes later, Jo’s parking on the street next to the Starbucks and walking inside with a heart rate that’s only slightly fast. She’s not really nervous about the fact that this means coming out to Patrick; she’s comfortable with her identity right now and knows that Patrick isn’t the type to flip his shit.

She gets her small latte and is about to text Patrick to see where he’s sitting when she sees him. He’s sitting with his laptop out in a back corner, typing something intently. Jo can’t deny that her heart stutters a little. Yeah, it’s been a long fucking time since they broke up or whatever, but Jo knows she’s still head over heels for him, probably always will be.

Tucking her hair behind her ear as she goes, Jo walks over to Patrick’s table and sits down across from him. “Hey,” she says softly.

He looks up from his work like he’s almost startled to see her, and then he blinks once before his face splits into a wide grin. “Hey!” he says, and it’s enthusiastic and happy but Jo can hear that he’s being careful.

“Hey,” she repeats, smiling. “I, uh, I missed you.”

Patrick, somehow, still hasn’t said a single thing about the fact that Jo’s wearing a dress and make-up. God, she fucking loves him. “Fuck, I missed you too,” he says, “and I’m sorry, I don’t know-”

Jo shakes her head. “It’s okay. There’s time for that later, just-” She cuts herself off and reaches across the table to grab his hand. “I missed you,” she says again, because what else is there to say? She’s not sure what’s okay or not yet or where they stand.

“I missed you too,” Patrick says back, laughing a little before his face sobers again. “So, I know I fucked up, and I’m sorry for that. I think… I think we did need that break, though. Um, that said, though, could we- are we back?”

Jo squeezes his hand, and while there are so many things to explain and stories to tell and little scars that still need mending, _they’re back._ “Yeah,” she says. “We’re fucking back.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! feedback makes my day :D


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